The Collinwood Liberty Group's 59th Anniversary meeting in Cleveland, OH

Good evening, my name is David and I am an alcoholic. Hi Dave. That is the single most

important thing I'll say here tonight. The beyond a shadow of a doubt in my head that much, much more so beyond a shadow of my heart today, I know that I'm an alcoholic. Could you please join me in getting started here with the Serenity?

We're going to the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, encourage to change the things I can and the wisdoms to know the difference.

OK, as I mentioned, my name is David Mancheck. I am an alcoholic and that is truly the most important thing that I'll say here tonight. I for a long, long time, I argue about that. I debated about that. I philosophized about that, ideologized about that. I had hands laid on me. I was sprinkled by his couch. I was dumped. I was locked up in rooms without doorknobs on my side. All kinds of crazy things would happen to David Mancheck as a direct result

of my inability to accept the fact

that I was in Oklahoma. So for me, the most powerful thing that I will say tonight is that beyond the shadow of doubt in my heart today, I know

I also have tendency to be a nervous alcoholic. That has never ever, ever changed me. When I'm called right now, I'm asked to be here, I jot it down. I first of all, I say yes simply because I have the kind of Home group that would break both of my legs if I said no. And it's not any great virtual.

And so I say yes, I mark it on my daytime or I stick it on my calendar. And I have one of those support group Home group sponsor cruise that knows in my business, they keep track of where I have to be, when I have to be there and what I have to do when I get there. And then they show up with me to make sure I get it and don't check out before I'm done doing what I'm supposed to be doing. So it's not a lot of virtue, it's just the way that I was

Alcoholics Anonymous. But I get nervous, I get anxious, I get scared. Usually selfish, self-centered kind of fears. Like one of these nights I'm going to stand up here, open my mouth, my dentures are going,

you're going to see how terribly blood I really AM. And and like, you may not like me what I do if you didn't like me, you know, and this is the last house on the block for me. So, you know, it's important that you at any rate, I get here. I get here very nervous. I get here in Christ and,

and, and tonight was number different. As we were driving down here, the butterflies turned into blackbirds and their stomach and, and as we got closer and closer to my heaven to come up here, I began to feel my heart pounding in my chest and, and I can feel my pulse throbbing in my shoes and my hands are cold and clammy and sweaty and there's some sweat running down under my arms. And I use deodorant twice before I bath today.

Signs and symptoms that I today refer to as start raving terror. That's how I get here.

That has never ever changed, but I'll tell you like you people have taught me that it is very healthy signs and symptoms for data management. Because, you see, there was a day at a time and a place in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, May 26th, 1981,

when I was incapable of feeling anything.

My wife and my mother-in-law helped me into the emergency room of the West Marine County Hospital. They wheeled me and I was swollen up all over the place. The nurse kept arguing with me and I kept arguing with her. She kept saying, David, Jamie. And I kept saying, lady, you don't watch how you're talking about this is alcoholism. I knew all about it. I had been detoxed before and I knew all about what was wrong. I think today much. And she said, David,

I knew that day I was in the intensive care cardiac ward. My heart was three times its normal silence. My liver was twice its normal size. The digestive system is shut down completely. It looked like a little rubber band on the sailing X-rays. I would go into a brain fever would set in. I would go in and out of a coming for the next 15 days. They would pronounce me get it twice. All is a direct result of my use abusive. And so you see, it's very healthy that I can be here tonight. It's very healthy that I can tell you that I'm sucking air tonight.

It's very healthy that I can tell you that I get scared and anxious and nervous when I have to do these kind of things because I'm alive today. By the grace of God and the fellowship of alcohol and synonyms and the 12 steps and the traditions, I have a place to go and I can be alive today. I'm asked to give you in a general way what I was like, what happened, and what I'm like today, and I hope you'll be able to do that this evening. Born and raised in the Pennsylvania mountains, I was a skinny, scrawny old hillbilly boy. I knew the effects of alcohol in a family very early in my life.

My old man drank. My old man drank abusively. And I share that with you because when he drank, he got abusive. And and the only reason that I need to share that fact with you is because he became Davidde first great resentment in life. I hated my old man and I feared my old man. I grew up in a hunting area. I would, although I didn't hunt, I would help my my cousins who did. And I knew what it was like to to, to

clean deer and rabbit and squirrel. And I knew what that worn sticky blood kind of feeling was. And as a youngster, I used to fantasize a lot. I don't know about you, but I fantasized a lot. Usually I fantasized being Tarzan,

Mr. Atlas, you know, someone who really grew up

and I would fantasize that warm, sticky, broad feeling on my hands and I wanted to treat the old man's. I would fantasize homicide because I hated him and I feared him so terribly much. As a result of fearing and hating my old man so much. I, I ran around with my mother and she became one of my best friends and she was involved Catholic churchgoer and I became a devout Catholic Church goer and I went to two different Catholic churches in town. I was an altar boy and one of them I, I

look very, very hard at trying to be a good little boy.

I ran to the church to hide. I didn't necessarily run there to a God of my understanding as I was young. I ran there because it was a safe place for me to run to. I ran there because when I got there I could be OK. You see, they would dress me up in those little altar boy robes and the little Bubba's would come into church and they would pat me on the top of the head and then say, oh, we'd need you let me see holy looking and I would suck that shit up.

Yeah, I'm cute, I'm sweet. I'm they were the only strokes I got. You see, as I grew up, I made promises. I promised my Mama I'd never drink like the old man drank. I never smoked like he smoked and I would never make her cry like he made her cry. But the other thing that I did growing up is I always compared my insides to your outsides. And nobody ever bothered to tell me that when you walk out front door, you dress up your assignments and and I would look at you and you were the glamorous people in the world.

You were the the football players and the basketball players and the basement. This is not the body you play football with. They really is. You know, I would get mistaken for being the football.

You were the valedictorians of the class. And I flunked 3rd grade. It's like, how do you flunk 3rd grade? You know, I just get flunky. I was the stupid one. I was dumb. I was skinny, I was scrawny. I was little. I was inadequate and I was inferior. And people left me know. They stepped up to let me know those things. And so I would walk around

feeling all that. Now he's terrified most of the time. And then I would look at you and you seem to feel like, and you seem to be a part of life. And I looked at right, like I was observing it, like I was never a part of it. I just never fit. And so when I ran into church, I ran there to be OK. I ran there to be safe. I didn't have any skills at living life on life's terms. And as I grew up,

with the help from the priest of the church, I began to believe that maybe, just maybe, these feelings are being very separate and very different than everybody, wasn't necessarily given they have.

And that maybe these feelings were different, good or better than anything. And maybe, just maybe, God had some very, very special pain. And maybe what I really ought to do is when I graduate from high school, I ought to, like, give away all my worldly possessions. I was a very stupid, naive little hillbilly boy. Pat myself into two AMP shopping bags. And if you can remember AMP you got a real good idea how old I am

and go off to a monastery to come Catholic priests.

So upon graduation, that's exactly what I did. I gave away all my grocery possessions. I packed myself in a 2:00 AM B shopping bags

and off to a monastery in New Jersey. I get to this lovely monastery. I looked around the room. There were nine other young men studying for the priesthood at this place and this.

Now I'm going to share with you what I saw that night.

Going to share it with you the truth because I don't know if I really know that. What I saw that night was I saw nine other young men who were 6 foot 6 inches tall. They were football players, basketball players and baseball players. They were valedictorians of their class. You could tell just by looking at them. They were smart. They what was worse was they were wholesome and holy looking kind of guys. They were the kind of guys you looked at. You just knew they had never said the word shit.

Butter would not melt in their mouth. They were so awesome looking. And then there is me, the one who fantasizes homicide with the old name.

I do not sit here. I really do not fit. And and along came the priest and he said, don't have a chicken for pizza. I'll bring the beer and we'll have a celebration to celebrate everybody's return to school. And I dug deep in my pocket my chicken for pizza and I came to their little party and that priest walked in with two sex packs. Carlin Black Label. Tim. Now I heard some of you have tried coloring that label out of the can. At any rate, I had kept those promises that I had made to my momma all those years.

I knew the pain that this stuff caused in our home. It didn't slow me down one bit. Everybody reached out and got a piece of pizza and so did I. And then they grabbed a can of beer and so did I. I popped the top of that can of beer and I began to guzzle my first beer. I had no idea what I was in for. I oh, it was oh, nasty yeasty tasting crap. I mean, it's burned in my mouth and then it burned in my throat and then I kept getting this tear in my eye that I had to keep blinking away so these macho dudes didn't see me cry.

Got this bubble right here and this gas bubble kept going from here.

I'm going to puke all over these guys at any given point in time. And, and so let's drink a little more and shove it down in there somewhere. I hated it. I hate it. Absolutely everything that was going on. And then somewhere, somewhere in round the first half of that first beer, I have what I refer to as my first religious experience. Now my first religious experience went like this.

I got this warm glow right in the chit of my stomach

and it began to grow. It began to get bigger and bigger and bigger and I began to roll my shoulders. I began to feel myself growing up to be 6 foot 6 inches tall. I became a football player, a basketball player and a baseball player. I became a blue eyed blonde. I became the valedictorian of my class.

I looked around the room and all those other guys and I figured whom and I could walk better, talk better, sing better, and dance better. And I proceeded to do all of them that night in the monastery and my underwear.

I had my first cigarette, a panel on filter and I inhaled. In the beginning they tried sticking me to bed in the room and spinning. They'd say put, put on the floor. I put both feet on the floor. I loved what was happening to me. I know madly and passionately in love with drug alcohol from the get go. I would sneak out of bed. I would run touchdowns down the hall. I yelled at the top of my voice.

3:00 in the morning that brought up on that ship in the morning

I had arrived for the very first time in my life. I felt like

a human being, but I had found my solution. Please hear that I found my solution to life. Life was my problem that night. I found a solution. I mean, like all of the promises came true and I'm not, I intuitively knew how to handle everything. I mean, it was wonderful. I

arrived in the human race and, and, and it was a guarded thing for me. It truly does. That night, I, I, I made an amendment for myself and I did do all those crazy things. I danced through the monastery halls in my underwear and, and all that stuff. And eventually they caught me. They stuck me in bed that I stuck and it passed out when sleep, I don't know. And in the wee hours of the morning, I rolled over and I wasn't blessed with a blackout that night.

There would be many next day, a little bit. It wasn't that night. And as I rolled over and I looked up at that tile ceiling, everybody,

I remembered all those embarrassing, shameful things that I had done. And then I remember those wholesome and holy looking guys

and feelings of shame and guilt

and I thought, oh God, what am I going to do? I didn't have any skills at living life on my terms and, and, and there's no more alcohol to make these feelings go away. And, and I just didn't know what to do. And I panicked. I crawled out of my bed, in my little bed and I went across the hall of the laboratory. I dug through my shaving equipment. I found a single edge Raisin and I proceeded to commit suicide. Two of those young men came in and found me with a razor to my race.

They took the razor away from me. They took me back into that little monastery bedroom. They tied me down to my little metal cup. The next morning they came in in the end time. And they said things to me the people would say to me for a long, long time. They said, David, you don't drink like normal people. David, you ought not drink alcohol. David, you have a drinking problem. And I said to them just as clearly as I'm saying to you tonight, but you don't understand. But you don't understand. I never drank before. All I have to do is learn to get it right. All I have to do is learn

to control. All I have to do is I I had found my solution, that I knew it. I wasn't about to let that solution go. By the end of that school year, I had acquired a taste of alcohol, preferably yours.

I wasn't thinking about what you were serving, how you were serving it. Out of the bottle, out of the brown paper bag. Beer, wine, whiskey. I really didn't care. As long as it was yours. You were serving. I was drinking. It was getting me there. I was cool. I

at the end of that first school year, they informed me that the Bishop was going to send me to this very straight laced conservative place in Pittsburgh. I knew that was going to be a problem. You see, I had already acquired a need for alcohol on a regular basis. And and I knew that very, very straight based place was going to dress me up in those long black robes with that little piece of plastic that used to slip my hands out along. And, and it had these great big deep sleeves and these great big deep pockets that were like

for your prayer books and your handles and your, your rosary beads and my pints and my quartz and my bags.

Anything else that I decided to smuggle in the monastery. That's exactly what I began to do. I took up carpentry. They did not offer it on the curriculum. I found out in my little bedroom, there was a bed in the desk and a chair and a sink and a medicine chest. And I found out you could open the medicine chest up, take all your junk out of it. You could take the two screws out of the back. That whole thing came right out of the wall. You could tie a string around the neck of your bottle, slide it down between the two two by fours, tie it off on a nail, stick the medicine chest back in, put all your crap back in. And when they when the

around and searched your room, he couldn't find your bottle. They couldn't figure out how this little monk say, so

they wanted me to sing at 7:00 in the morning. Obviously you've never heard me sing. I don't sing well sober. I certainly don't sing well drunk, but I sang louder drunk.

So I would make sure that I was good and drunk. And I'm a few good double headers. And then I go into Chapel and I'd just be seeing my little heart out. They'd be up there searching my room. Yeah, this one, this one quite often. And and the part that I really need to remember about that is that you people eventually taught me that I had a threefold disease, physical, mental and spiritual. I'm here to tell you, please, please,

Please remember I got spiritually sick 1st and it didn't matter where I was living. I was living in a monastery,

I was living in a church. I was in Chapel two and three and four and five times a day.

My prayers were no less sincere then than they are today. I have a disease called alcoholism. I chose to put alcohol in my body and I got spiritually sick. Now that spiritual sickness began to show itself in the form of being very selfish and very self-centered. I began to point the finger at all those hypocritical Catholics that come to church on Sunday morning. I mean, I took everybody's inventory and said Davis, I began to point the finger at those hypocritical Catholics that would come to church. Shake your hand and say

with you, brother, and run you over in the parking lot. And then I start to point the finger. It goes nuns and those priests and, and you know, I'd love to be able to stand here and tell you all about the politic playing in the church and, and, and, and this great big God that they had on a great big throng up there were big black book and he's marking off exes and OS and you're going to go to hell in a handbasket and all that crazy stuff. That's what I'd like to be able to stand here and tell you about what I need to be able to stand here and tell you about in order to make amends to the.

That's all I could see in my spiritual sickness. In my spiritual sickness, all I could see was the negative in everyone, anyone. I couldn't see any positive in me. I couldn't see any positive in you. It doesn't. It didn't fit my purpose. I needed to continue to be able to drink in the manner in which I wanted to drink. As a result of that, I got very, very spiritually sick very quickly. And 2 1/2 years after entering that monastery,

I decided I used to have brilliant ideas back then, how my sponsor doesn't let me have brilliant ideas today, but I had brains ideas back then. And, and I, I decided that Holy Mother, the church and I were not seeing that I she was wrong and I was right. And with all of the arrogance that I could muster up, I packed myself back into my AMP shopping bags and off to a monastery

or off today, the campus I went, I, I moved on campus to finish up the last year and a half of my college career. The best thing that I can take about that is that I stay drunk. I, I mean, I got drunk in the morning, I got drunk in the afternoon, and I got drunk at night. I met the young lady who was to eventually become my wife. She was relatively sane when I met her. I'd love to be able to say the same for when we parted. I'll tell you what, that beautiful, beautiful lady that helped me into that emergency room that I described earlier.

Sat at the foot of my bed for that 14 days and she prayed and and and and she didn't pray that her husband get better and she didn't pray that I die. What she prayed was dear God that this living hell end When I met her in in that senior year of college when I met her, she was a beautiful little blue eyed blonde. She was a graphic artist. She was a kind of kid that looks at the world and sees form and art and beauty and color and all the wonderful beautiful things that an artist sees when they look at the world.

And and then I happened in her life. And as she sat at the foot of that bed praying, she would pray that dear God let this held. I mean, and and she would look on every night on her way home from that hospital. She would look at every oncoming trucker or bridge as an opportunity and maybe slam her car into it and end it for herself. She was suicidal 2 years before I hit bottom and she didn't drink and she didn't drunk. All she did was dare to love a practicing alcoholic without some kind of program.

I met her in around Christmas time. By Easter time, she informed me that we were going steady. Now what did I know? I was drunk. So I said and and then she informed me we were going to her mother's house for Easter dinner. I thought I'll have a couple double headers for that one

and I did. I had a couple double headers and off to mama's house we went. Now I walked in the front door and I fell in love, not with her and not with her Mama. I fell in love with kitchen counter. It hadn't missed the whiskey on it. Some of those top shelf stuff. I found out this was a family with a refrigerator on the front portrait. Nothing in it, but

I had a run. I'll tell you what, I got drunk that day. I made a fool out of myself that day too. God, nothing new

and and for some reason they even invited me back. I graduated from school that may they bring me a little graduation party. I thought they really understand the caliber of person they got here and I went to their own graduation party for me. I packed myself into my MY2AMP shopping banks. I moved into their living room. I parked myself on their couch and I stayed all summer long.

They didn't invite me to stay off. Their daughter went back to school to finish up her college. I stayed with her family.

I thought this was a real pushy deal. I eat their food, drink their boots and sleep on their couch. They finally like, Midsummer. They convinced me, like, look, you graduated. You got these things called degrees. Like, maybe you ought to do something productive with yourself, like get a job.

I hadn't put much thought to that. But see, I had a degree. I had a degree in philosophy, a degree in theology, and a degree in English. Well, we all know the degree in philosophy entitles you to sit on a stump and think,

which is not pay much. It really doesn't. So I I put some thought to it and I figure, well, with a degree in theology, about the only other thing I could do is teach religion. So I figured I would get a job at the local Catholic High School teaching the Goodwill Catholic kids about their goodwill Catholic God. And that's exactly what I did. I got a job teaching religion and English for local Catholic High School

and teaching the global Catholic kids about the little Catholic God, and I did it stoned out of my mind. Now that is alcoholic. I wouldn't necessarily do it. I knew that I couldn't go to this upright Catholic school wreaking abuse every day, so I did what Doctor Bob does. In Doctor Bob's Nightmare, I found those lovely white tranquilizers to keep the shapes away during the professional day, and I would pump those suckers in. I would zoom off to work and I would teach. I found out that my homeroom was on the third floor of that building.

I could 307, the bell would ring. I could close my room up. I could get down three flights of stairs, out the door, across the parking lot, in my car, out of the parking lot before the senior students. No teacher ever accomplished that. There was a fire down the end of the street. I go down there, get about 3 or 4 double headers, peppermint knots. Nobody can smell that.

And then I'll go back to school to be able to sign my name legibly. And so that's what I would do. That four years was to see me try to control my drinking everywhere I could. I went from cocktail lounges to beer bars with shots and beer. I, I, I, I did the kegger out in the woods with the kids. I did, I did anything. I went from beer to wine, from wine to whiskey for I tried, I tried conference clothes. I married that young lady to control my drinking and she didn't do a very good job.

I told her she didn't do a very good job. Her family said that if she was just better in bed, a better cook or a better housekeeper, her old man wouldn't drink the way he drank. I remember they had no concept about the the family disease of alcoholism, just none. She felt bad

because she couldn't control my drinking. She truly did. And anyway, she and I were, you know, we had, we had all kinds of crazy stuff begin to go on. I, I, I learned some extremely powerful coping skills at that time. I didn't know they were coping skills, but I, I don't know about you, but I used to wake up in weird places with weird people doing weird things and, and, and all of us is inappropriate. But I mean, just, you learn to survive those kind of things, you know,

grading and embarrassing and shameful and, and you just learn to survive. And one of my survival techniques was anytime I began to come to, I would lay there very still with my eyes very tightly shut, very still thinking, I wonder where I'm at this time. And, and I'll tell you what, it never, never failed me. I would begin to get some food and I would smell clean sheets. I knew I wasn't at home

and I would lay there waiting to hear some kind of sound that would give me an idea of where I was this time. And, and, and it would inevitably I would hear that old belding and I would hear that lovely little nurse come on the PA system and she's a doctor. So and so report to us and so and I'd say, oh God,

I landed in the hospital. I can't and I would struggle to get up only to find out they'd strap me down with those big legs

again. And then I would struggle to get up and I would look to see what damage I did

this time, only to find my wrist slit and soaked in blood again.

And I would lay my head back against that plastic blowing pillow and my heart would sink down into the pin of my stomach and I'd say, God, lie,

Why me? How could I have landed here again? We were going to count as little sticks. My wife was going to count my drinks. They were going to shut me off after a couple. How can I land here again?

God? And I'll tell you, they would keep me for three days, five days, seven days, 14 days observation. They would tell me what a terribly nervous person I was. They would give me what a Valium deficiency I had. They would give me an open script for Valium and send me home. And I would be off to there. I mean, I knew that valley was a very dry pill. Takes at least a case of beer to wash it down on the way home. And I will be off to the races

and, and, and you would go on like this. It went on like this for four years.

Finally, four years into this, the school decided that they were not hiring me back for a fifth year of teaching because I wasn't state certified. It doesn't take a PhD to figure out you can't be a state certified religion teacher. There's a division between church and state in this country. I couldn't have been state certified in religion if I wanted to be.

They use that excuse to save my professional reputation and I owe the church a very great thanks for that. At any rate, they've let me go. I now had more great resentments and and I did anything and everything for the next 2 1/2 years to get moves. If you can think of it, I did it immoral, illegal, fattening. I did it. My wife and I would fight, we would argue, we would go into these crazy. She would confront my drinking. She'd say this is addiction. You're drinking too much and, and, and, and and

happened to love Harvick when romances and when I hit bottom, she had 2000 Harlem romances. And, and she would, I would wake up on my dirty little couch in the living room. And, and one day I woke up there and there was two of my vodka bottles there with a little note on it. And the little note said, this is not liking to drink. This is addiction. So I was furious when I woke up. So I took my note off my bottles and I took it upstairs and I stuck it on her article and romance. And I said, this is not liking to raise. This is addiction,

insane, crazy back and forth wars that we would do and and always, always get myself in trouble. I'll tell. And then back then I would have, like I said, brilliant ideas. One day she confronted my drinking and I figured I know what I will do. I will call Ana. See, I knew about you folks. I knew you was out there. I'll call that AMA place

I knew. I used to tell my senior students in religion class if they ever had a drinking problem. You call this ANS

it's a subversive underground organization. They will pick you up, take you to a couple of their subversive underground meetings and they will teach you to dream right. So I figure I will call A&A. So it was a hot, muggy, miserable July morning. It was one of those mornings in the Pittsburgh area where you're sweating before you ever get the sheet off of you. I mean, I crawled out of bed, I picked up the phone. I died A and as number now

lovely lady came on the phone and in like 30 seconds flat, she's insulting my dignity. She's asking me stupid questions like can you go for a whole day without a dream? I said, lady, you have absolutely no idea who you are talking to. I am a dignified professional in the community here, she said. Listen, Mr. Dignified,

none of those twisted up little cigarettes, no pills and no booze all day long and we'll send someone around to pick your dignified little butt off.

So I hung up the phone after giving her my pertinent information with my first AA resentment, I didn't know that that's what it was, but I had an A reason and to meet that resentment, I had another brilliant idea. I had a brilliant idea at 8:00 in the morning that I was going to get dressed for this a a meeting looking like I didn't need to people. I'm going to get go to this meeting looking like the dignified professional that I knew. Now, I decided I would go into the bathroom and

shave. That was a novel feedback. Then I was shaken on the outside, I'm shaking on the inside. I go into the bathroom. 45 minutes later, I emerge with blood running. I mean, there's tissue paper all over and I'm still shaking. I'm still sweating. And I decided I will get dressed in my best three piece suit. So I get dressed in this best three piece suit and here I am pacing back and forth at 11:00 in the morning. It's 90 in the shade. The humidity is 87%,

I'm sweating bucket after bucket of sweat and I'm dressed in a three piece suit look. Waiting for an AA meeting at 7:30 tonight.

Now you got that picture. This is a three piece suit I had drank in for well over seven years. It had not been cleaned. Anyway,

it reaped to boosie. Oh and vomit. There were like little burn holes and seeds falling. I mean it was bad. It was really bad and. And here I am waiting to go to this gentleman comes by and his three piece suit didn't quite smell like mine.

This car didn't look like any alcoholic car I had ever seen. And and off to this Ana meeting we went. Now we got to this meeting in Monroeville is a great big old meeting. And we got in the back door and I took one look around that room and I guess this science leave.

Thank God I can't possibly be. There was not a man in that room a year younger than God,

begun to be an alcoholic. I knew it. And they dragged me down here in what they called the dummy row. I really resented that. And then they started to pour me one of these lousy cups of AA coffee. Now, I'll tell you what, I didn't like coffee back then, but I certainly didn't like your coffee back then. And then they dumped sugar in it, saying it would take the shakes away. I don't take sugar in my coffee. And then they dump cream in it, and I don't take cream in my coffee either. And I figured, uh-huh,

I know what these old farts are up to. They can see what a nervous condition I have, and they fill that cup of coffee right up to the brink. They want to see me try to pick it up and spill it so they can laugh at me.

I'll sit here and die a thirst, and I'm sitting there dying a thirst in this old battle. Axe gets up there and she's battling on it. 45 minutes later she's still up there babbling on.

I am dying in the worst case of cotton balls I've ever had in my life.

And I figured, you know, I kind of slide that Styrofoam does not slide

everywhere. And they took their anchor piece out and they mopped it up and they said keep going. That kid.

I cussed the skinny little ones out out loud. The big guys I cussed out under my breath.

But for some reason, for some reason, I actually kept going back to A and A meetings. Now my ex-wife and I figured it out. It's because that old fart showed up every night and drugged me to another meeting for the next nine nights. At any rate, I decided I really, really would try this stuff. So I went cold Turkey. And I'll tell you what, I had an experience in nine days that I referred to as the Beginner's Guide to Serenity. If you want to know what the beginners guide the Serenity is, it goes like this.

Drink long enough, drink hard enough, drink heavy enough. Totally saturate absolutely every cell in your body with a cellular craving for alcohol and then cold Turkey it. You will shake apart from the inside out. Your stomach will feel like it's flawed ground glass. You will shake on the outside, you'll shake on the inside. You will know where your liver ends and your pancreas begins. I mean you will bucket after bucket of sweat. You will vibrate right off your dirty little pouch like I used to. You will run to the bathroom. I

emergency run to the bathroom. You will not know whether you should stick your head in or sit down on the promotion. I was very lucky. We had a very small bath and I could sit and throw up in the sink. And so that began my sobriety and I was going to these meetings and feeling like that. And suddenly on the 9th day,

all of that shakiness went away.

The shakes went away, the sweats went away. I felt human again. And I thought

that's what that AIDS are talking about when they're talking about serenity. And I got it in nine days. This has got to be some kind of record or something. Yeah, I'm going to go to the beginners meeting tonight at Sunday meeting. And I'm going to tell all the newcomers that they keep like, I kept coming back, they could get this serenity stuff, too. And how hard can it possibly be? I got it in nine days

and so I went to the beginners meeting and and I got up there and I told them all about this newfound serenity that I had and this old timer looked a man shook his head like they shake their head of us. And then he shook his finger at me like they shake their fingers at us And he said, man attack. I get real scared and alcohol withdrawal seizures whenever you shake go away that sudden and I looked at him and said I ain't felt this good in 10 years. What are you talking about? And I'll tell you what we got up from the beginners meeting. We're on our way out to the regular 18 and I

right up around there when I went into a 20 minute grandma alcohol external seizure. I'm here to tell you that I remember very little that I need.

I remember coming vaguely to on a very, very cold tile floor. It felt like I was laying on marble. There was sweat running all over me, worse than it is right now. I could feel every square inch of my skin and it felt like there were ants crawling all over me and I couldn't move to rub them off. There were there were people standing around me and I couldn't make them out. I couldn't focus very well and and I could hear them, but it was all garbled. I couldn't make out what they were saying.

It stuffed something in my mouth and I couldn't talk. But what was worse was in my head. I could feel my brain snapping and sizzling and, and, and crackling in there. And I couldn't shut it off. I couldn't make it go and I couldn't maintain my dignity and get up and, and walk out there and, and they took me out of that meeting in an ambulance. They took me to the East Suburban Hospital east of Cleveland. They kept me for 9 days. They helped me, prodded me, scanned me. They told me there's no such thing as an alcohol withdrawal seizure. They told me I was terribly

person, could use some Valium and some sleeping pills and they said to come. I bought that case of beer. I was off to the races. Six months later my old lady said do something or else and I hated the way she said or else. And I said I'll do anything in those moments of insanity when we I'll do anything. And she said good. I had this place called a detox

and they said you sounded like a likely candidate, we're going to take you down to Saint Francis Hospital detox in Pittsburgh. And I said OK. And they took me down there and they kept me for 9 days. And they didn't tell me that I was a nervous person. They didn't tell me that I had that in deficiency either. What they did is they brought my beautiful wife, my, my little sister who was 13 at the time and a little blue eyed blonde, just a most adorable thing. And my momma. They they invited them into my detox room and sat on my detox bed

and they sat me in a little plastic chair and drive Kolinsky want him. And he felt his Bony little finger right in the center of my chest. And he said, David, I want you to look in the eyes of these women who love you while I tell you what I need to tell you. And he proceeded to tell me that I have what is known as an alcoholic cardiomyopathy and

should I choose to put a mood mind altering chemical in my body again, I would be dead within six months.

I heard. I felt my heart sink down into the pain of my stomach